The Fight at Hueco Tanks Read online

  Tzoe ignored the compliments and looked to the sky. “We must ride now. We will not get Tanner today.”

  Chato rolled out and squeezed off two more shots then rolled back. “We need only three of us at the canyon. I will leave Copperhead here to keep Tanner for when we return. I will have both him and the Bluecoats.”

  “You are devious, brother,” Tzoe flattered. “Now let us go,” he urged.

  Has-kay-bay-nez-ntay, The Apache Kid, was already waiting by the ponies when Chato and Tzoe crested the ridge. Behind them they could hear Copperhead’s rifle talking and a ragged fire coming back from the station. Chato had told him to keep changing position so it would appear they were all still there. He hoped the ruse would work. But there was no time to worry now. There were more important tasks to be done.

  “You have what we need?” he called as he caught his pony and vaulted onto its back, wrenching the hackamore and digging in his heels so the animal wheeled skittishly.

  “Yes,” Tzoe answered, selecting a saddlebag from the pile of gear. He mounted his own stocky pony, a glance taking in Chato’s face contorted with fanaticism. The small herd milled as the Apache Kid mounted. When he was up on its back he circled, ready to drive the loose ponies before him.

  Chato flashed his teeth and raised his rifle.

  “Let us ride brothers. Netdahe! Death to the white man!”

  ***

  The box canyon began as a shallow fissure in the escarpment, its entrance twenty feet wide which ducked to twist between steeply rising walls until it came to a blank cliff where the skyline was a hundred feet above the canyon floor. Here at the end the fissure had widened out to a hundred yards and vegetation had thrust out of the earth, nourished by the water that seeped from the base of the sheer cliff.

  “Why are we taking the ponies?” The Apache Kid asked, breaking his usual silence as he cut and weaved to keep the loose horses on the right trail.

  “They are the bait,” Tzoe answered. “We will drive them into the canyon. If the Pony Soldiers arrived and saw no tracks they would know it was a trap. Then as they ride into the canyon they will be able to see them grazing at the far end. Once they are in there, one man hidden in the rocks at the entrance could keep them pinned down for hours. We will be able to pick them off one by one.” He patted the saddlebag slung across his pony’s neck. “I have another surprise for the Americanos too.”

  “Que? What?”

  Tzoe smiled. “You will see. I think you will enjoy it more than the Bluecoats will.”

  “That I truly hope. I look forward to counting many coups today.”

  “Yes,” Tzoe agreed. “It is a good day to die.”

  ***

  “We’ll need water soon,” Tanner said, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. The mouthful of water had tasted tepid, no relief in it at all. He measured the distance to the well. It wasn’t far but an alert rifleman up on the hillside wouldn’t need long to draw a bead. Once he knew you were at the well he knew you would have to return. It would be then he would strike.

  He had hoped the water would last longer but there was only his canteen. Josh had carried one under the stagecoach seat but a stray bullet had punctured it. With seven people sharing, it didn’t last long. Now they were all drying out fast. The woman and her daughter worried him the most. Unused to the desert they would lose body fluid like a rain-barrel with the plug out. He looked over his shoulder. Kate Lantz already looked gaunt, dark circles rimming her eyes. Somebody would have to make a run for the well.

  “I said we’ll need water soon.”

  “I heard you,” Zeke replied from the corner of his mouth. “Nobody’s disagreeing.”

  “You’re supposed to say, ‘Okay, Jim, I’ll go.’”

  “Am I? Me, I always figured you could run faster’n me.”

  “Make you a bet, Zeke. You go first, then I’ll go next time. Then we’ll see who runs the slicker,” Tanner said dryly. “Besides, I’m the one with the Winchester. You let some worn-out old Apache steal yours. You can’t cover me with a Colt.”

  “Okay, you give me the Winchester.”

  “What? While I’m out at the well another old Indian just might sneak up on you and steal it. And even if that don’t happen you’re so blind you’ll probably shoot me when I’m coming back.”

  Zeke looked hurt. “A man can get mighty sensitive.”

  “With a hide as thick as yours? I’ve seen buffaloes would’ve been glad to trade skins with you.”

  “A man could always find another partner.”

  Tanner snorted. “One that’d help an old man with his boots on of a morning and give him a ride every time he was fool enough to let a young Apache buck of twelve summers trip up his horse?”

  “A man gets mighty sensitive about his horse.”

  “’Specially when he’s lost as many as you.”

  “A man doesn’t have to listen to all this idle jawing.”

  Tanner nodded gravely. “I’ll allow that. He could take a walk out there to the well instead. Not much idle jawing out there.”

  “No, just bullets.”

  “Thought you needed something to bite on?”

  “With my old teeth?”

  Tanner laughed. “I figure I’m going to have to go after all. Just you fellas make sure you give me plenty of cover. I ain’t done much running lately.”

  “You’ll run almighty quick with hot Apache lead chasing you,” Zeke quipped.

  A cough sounded behind them. They both turned.

  “Excuse me, but Señor Tanner uses a repeating rifle better than any of us, and you Señor Harris, if you’ll permit me, cannot run as far as Señor Tanner.”

  “So?” Zeke asked, po-faced.

  “Then Señors, I will go.”

  Zeke grinned and turned to Tanner. “Didn’t I tell you he was a gentleman?”

  Tanner showed his teeth. “And didn’t I tell you if we bickered long enough he’d offer to go?”

  “Yeah, and you were right.”

  Tanner held out his hand. “Then where’s the dollar you owe me?”

  Zeke coughed and made a face. “You’ll have to wait until pay-day.”

  Tanner jerked his head knowingly and turned back to face the desert. “You really think you’re going to live that long?”

  On Tanner’s orders Juan Servada gave the last of the water to Kate Lantz and her daughter, Ruth. Coldly he ignored William Loving’s pleas that he was dying from thirst. When Kate had drunk her fill, gagging on the lukewarm liquid, he returned to the wall where he crouched behind the two scouts.

  “I am ready.”

  “Good. Make it fast and keep well down when you’re hauling on that rope. Nobody’s got killed yet and I don’t want to ruin my track record.”

  Servada scowled. “I wouldn’t want to do that.”

  Tanner grinned, levering a shell into the Winchester’s chamber. “I’ll hold fire so you can surprise ’em. When they open up I’ll give it all I’ve got.” He raked the country. There was no movement. “Okay, now!”

  The Mexican sprang over the wall and crabbed speedily away from the barn, keeping the well between him and as much open desert as he could. On the hillside a rifle cracked. Dust powdered his boots. Tanner’s Winchester barked in reply. Bullets whined over Servada’s head. He slid to a halt, then crouched low under the wall of the well. The bucket was perched on the rim. He reached up and knocked it over the edge. The crank handle screamed as the rope reeled out, the bucket hurtling down. The splash was lost under the gunfire, but the handle squeaked to a stop.

  Slowly Servada inched up to grasp the handle. He could almost reach it without exposing himself. As his head poked over the wall a bullet snatched away his hat. It flew into the air and tumbled back to earth by the barn wall. Too close. He had felt the wind of it. But without his hat he could swing the handle unexposed, still crouching, by raising his arm over the wall.

  He began to crank. It was hard work. His arm felt as if i
t was being wrenched from its socket, so awkward was his position. The operation seemed endless, time stretched by bullets flying overhead, very close. He could hear the bucket banging against the side. Almost there. His face was running with sweat. The bucket was at the top. Kneeling now, he grabbed the rim, swung it out towards him, and lowered it to the ground. In a second he had the cap unscrewed from the canteen and the neck pushed under the water.

  When it was full he put the cap back on. The gunfire seemed to have increased. Between the shots he could hear Tanner yelling.

  Servada frowned. “Que? What?”

  The Winchester barked once more then Tanner yelled again. “Toss the canteen. Easier to run without it. Drink all you can from the bucket, you’ll need it!”

  “Here!” Servada threw the canteen underhand in a neat arc. It landed squarely in Zeke’s waiting hands. A dipper hung on the well post above him. He grabbed it and began to scoop from the pail. From deep in the ground the water was cool. He swallowed as much as he could. At the barn the canteen was passed from hand to hand until it was empty, then Josh’s Winchester took over the chore of keeping the Indians occupied while Tanner lobbed the canteen back to Servada.

  “Fill it again, throw it, then get out of there.”

  “Si, Señor!” When it was done, reluctant to waste the rest of the bucketful, he splashed it gratefully over his hot face so that it ran down his throat and onto his shirtfront.

  “No time to take a bath. Get on back!”

  Servada grinned, then tensed for the run.

  “Now!”

  He pushed away from the wall and came up running. His boot heels pounded on the packed earth. Twisting, he dodged and weaved. Then he was at the barn wall. He flung himself full length in a dive. His landing was an untidy somersault. A bullet clipped a hunk out of the adobe brick barely a second too late.

  “You’ll have to go back,” Zeke growled. “You forgot to push the bucket back in.”

  Servada tried to see the old man’s face but powder-smoke hid his expression.

  Tanner lowered his rifle and waved an arm at Josh. “You can stop now. No point in wasting bullets. Can’t see a damn thing anyway.”

  Josh ceased fire and the two men began reloading. Zeke peered out at the desert, frowning.

  “How many d’you figure’re out there, Jim?”

  Tanner could see that the old man’s mind was ticking over. He might be getting on in years but he was all there.

  “I know the shooting’s coming from different places but it all sure sounds like the same rifle.”

  Tanner thought for a moment. “You could be right. Something was nagging at me too and maybe you’ve hit on it.” He twisted to scour the scrub in the east. “We ain’t heard a thing from that way.” He turned back. “But if there’s only one where are the others? We only got the one on the roof for sure.”

  Servada broke into his thoughts. “What about your column? Could they be attacking that?”

  Tanner shook his head. “Chato’s crazy as a pony fed on locoweed but he ain’t that crazy. If that was all of them that jumped me and Zeke along the trail then there ain’t enough of ’em to take on twenty troopers. Not out here in the open.”

  “Let’s try him anyways,” Zeke growled. “You loose off a few shots and I’ll go up on the roof and spot him.”

  “Okay, get on up.” Tanner settled into his shooting crouch while Zeke climbed the ladder. When the scuffles on the roof ceased, he opened fire. He took it slow, picking up a rhythm when he raised some answering fire. Now he was watching carefully he noticed the shots petered out from one position then started again a few moments later from a little way across the hillside.

  Zeke soon came back down. “You see it?”

  “There’s only one,” Tanner confirmed.

  “Yeah, but one can keep us pinned down as sure as twenty. As soon as one of us pokes his nose out he’s gonna get it shot off. What are we going to do about it?”

  Tanner looked up from pushing fresh shells into his Winchester’s magazine from a rapidly emptying box. “Well, we can’t stay here all day, I’m running out of lead.” After the last bullet was pushed home he took a swill from the canteen. “Think I’ll take me a little walk. Zeke, you push a few shots over that wall while I go out the back way, then lay low for a few minutes to give me time to get up in back of him. When you think I’m ready give him a few more so’s I can get a sight on him. Okay?”

  Zeke nodded. “You done it before, you can do it again. You know, this reminds me of that time we were up on the Cimarron. Remember…?”

  “Save the yarns for some camp-fire when we get out of here, old-timer. Just you pick up that Apache for me.” He grinned and punched Zeke lightly on the shoulder. “Now get shooting.”

  Before the first bullet ploughed out into the desert he had faded over the back wall.

  Nobody saw him go.

  CHAPTER 12

  Three-Fingers hated himself a lot.

  But he hated Chato and Tzoe even more. If there was one time in his life he loathed being an Apache it was now. He had no idea what the broncos had up their sleeves but as he rode ahead of the cavalry column he knew he was leading them into a trap. Guiding the soldiers to the box canyon could not just be a way of buying the renegades time to escape. Chato had to have a plan.

  The paint pony stumbled and jarred Three-Fingers’s foot in the stirrup. He flinched as the pain from his severed toes flashed like an angry streak of lightning up his calf. Unconsciously he closed his eyes as he bit into his lip.

  Of one thing he was sure, he would not die in whatever trap Chato and the Treacherous Coyote had laid for the Pony Soldiers. No matter what tricks they played he would kill them both. And if he had his way their deaths would be long and painful.

  He juggled ideas. He would cut off their noses first. Then he would scalp them while they were still alive. Then there was wet rawhide tight round their throats, shrinking as it dried in the sun. There was castration. That would give him great pleasure. And he could cut off their eyelids so they could never sleep, cut out their tongues, burn out their eyes, cut out their hearts while their lungs still drew breath. Ant-hills too. Skin them alive and stake them out over a disturbed ant-hill. The ants would be drawn like a swarm of locusts to feast on the bloody meat.

  He would listen to their screams and laugh…

  “Scout! How much further?”

  Three-Fingers reined in the little paint, the manic laughter in his mind replaced by the throbbing pain of his foot. The lieutenant drew level.

  “I said how much further?” He looked exasperated. His horse was lathered, mouth flecked with spittle as it sawed on its reins, trying to adjust the position of the metal bit. Behind Hardcastle the two ranks of troopers straggled onward, faces above the drooping heads of their mounts hidden by the lowered brims of their hats.

  “Soon now.”

  Hardcastle pulled off his hat and rubbed his forearm across his face in a futile effort to wipe away the sweat. “That’s all you ever say. Soon now. Soon now.” He pushed his hat back on firmly. “It better had be soon. I want to catch those murdering renegades.”

  Three-Fingers looked away. Well, Pony Soldier, he thought, it may be sooner than you think.

  ***

  Tanner lay motionless in the dust of the shallow hillside above the relay station and tried to ignore the sweat that crept from under his hatband to trickle down his face. He dearly wanted to raise his arm to wipe it away but an unnecessary movement at this stage of the hunt could be his last.

  He had lit out of the barn like he had a fire under his tail but once out in the open he had slowed down. Caught between the four walls he had felt trapped, like a treed cougar at the mercy of the hunters’ guns. Once away from the barn he again felt free, his own master, unburdened of the travelers whose continued good health had become his responsibility. There was also the column. What had happened to them? Those soldiers were too green for the desert. Raw recruits. Mullaney, the s
ergeant, knew which way was up but Tanner had his doubts about Lt. Hardcastle. He could be too bull-headed to listen to reason, sometimes when it mattered most. He just didn’t understand that taking on Chato wasn’t the same as tracking down an ordinary run of the mill Apache who had taken the notion to jump the reservation. Still, Three-Fingers was with him to keep him on the right road and Tanner could only hope Hardcastle had the head on his shoulders to listen to Mullaney.

  He tried to put it out of his mind and make his ears work. The Apache was out there somewhere and right now the whole thing was down to just him against the Indian.

  He wondered if he was high enough up the rise. If he’d misjudged and was below the renegade then he might as well throw down his gun now and hold up his hair to be taken.

  It was the waiting. And the heat. The ground all around him burned and his shirt and buckskins stuck to his body from his shoulder blades to the top of his boots. The trigger guard of his Winchester was uncomfortably warm. He squinted the salt sweat from his eyelids and stared out into the heat haze that made the earth look as if it was dancing.

  Zeke should have opened up by now.

  Maybe, he suddenly thought with horror, what if when he had gone out over the back wall the Apache had seen him go and there’d been more than one of them after all and they’d sneaked in down there and now everyone was dead? No, he decided, he would have heard something. Someone would have screamed, if only in death. If it wasn’t the woman or the child he would bet his poke the fat slug of a salesman would scream like a woman.

  C’mon Zeke. Get on with it.

  He strained his hearing.

  Nothing.

  C’mon, c’mon, I’m going to dry out if I stay up here much longer.

  A Colt cracked. Zeke. Immediately a rifle answered from the hillside. Tanner let out a sigh of relief. Below and to the right. With his bearings now, he watched carefully. The Apache loosed off another shot. Tanner was nearly sure now. A clump of low mesquite about a hundred yards off. Another bullet and he was certain he could see the fold of the Apache’s kabuns, knee-high moccasins. As he focused the leg moved.